Defending Engagement Goals
During a significant social media addiction trial, a key executive from YouTube, Cristos Goodrow, a vice president of engineering, was compelled to address
the company's long-standing objective: to amass over a billion hours of daily viewer engagement by 2016. This ambitious target, established more than a decade prior, became a central point of contention. Plaintiffs' legal counsel, Mark Lanier, argued that Goodrow, like Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a previous testimony, personally benefited from increased user engagement due to his compensation being tied to the company's stock performance.Lanier presented internal company documents suggesting that maximizing viewer engagement was indeed a critical performance metric for YouTube. However, Goodrow countered this assertion, stating that YouTube's design prioritizes delivering 'the most value' to users rather than solely aiming to maximize watch time. He maintained that the platform's core intent is not to keep people watching for extended, potentially harmful, periods but to ensure they find what they are looking for efficiently and effectively.
Features Fueling Engagement
The plaintiff's attorney, Mark Lanier, pressed YouTube's vice president of engineering, Cristos Goodrow, on specific features that proponents of the addiction lawsuit claim are designed to ensnare users. These features include the widely used video recommendation system, the automatic playback of subsequent videos and advertisements, and the development of a dedicated YouTube version for children. Lanier argued that these additions collectively foster a 'treadmill of continuous checking' for fresh content, thereby encouraging users to remain immersed in the platform. Goodrow, however, pushed back against this interpretation. He contended that the company does not aspire to create addictive experiences for any user. When questioned about the intentional design of features aimed at prolonged viewing, he emphasized that YouTube's success lies in its ability to help users find desired content swiftly. He expressed that excessive scrolling would, in fact, indicate a failure of the recommendation algorithms to effectively serve the user's interests, rather than a desired outcome.
User Experience vs. Addiction
Cristos Goodrow, YouTube's vice president of engineering, distinguished his platform from social networks like Facebook and Snapchat during his testimony. He stressed that YouTube is not primarily a space for social interaction between friends or for ephemeral message sharing, thereby differentiating its function and user experience. According to Goodrow, the company views extensive scrolling by users as a sign of dissatisfaction, not success. He elaborated that the ideal user experience on YouTube is one where individuals can quickly access the content they wish to view, every single time they access the platform. If users find themselves scrolling extensively, it suggests that the platform's recommendation engine is not performing optimally. He further agreed that the discovery of outside research indicating adverse effects from prolonged video consumption was acknowledged internally. This led to the implementation of features such as view timers and prompts encouraging breaks, particularly for younger audiences, to mitigate potential negative impacts.
Legal Ramifications and Settlements
The ongoing trial, scheduled to continue until late March, will determine whether Meta and YouTube bear legal responsibility for mental health issues experienced by individuals with extensive social media usage since childhood, such as the plaintiff Kaley G.M., who began using YouTube at age six. This case is significant as it is the first in a series of lawsuits filed by American families against social media giants, aiming to establish whether companies like Google and Meta intentionally engineered their platforms to promote compulsive behavior among young people. The outcome could set a precedent for thousands of other lawsuits blaming social media for contributing to a rise in depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicides. Notably, other platforms named in the complaint, TikTok and Snapchat, have already reached settlements with the plaintiff before the trial commenced, signaling a potential shift in how these platforms address user engagement and its consequences.
